written by baff57 on 12/09/2023
Not to be trusted if you are renting from them. I rented a bungalow from them, and they asked me if I could leave early as they had another tennant. I agreed I would do what I could and moved out 4 days early. Now refusing the refund. Also claiming £750 in damages claiming damages that were in place when i moved in and after i spent a considerable amount of time and money improving the property. Gutted !!
written by Seamusc279 on 19/04/2023
Around one year ago, we were interested in a house and the seller A accepted our offer. Then after over half a year, almost all the procedures went through, the seller's solicitor stopped replying to our solicitor but reassured that they're sorting the last enquiry out. After one month, the estate agent contacted us that the seller declined to sell the house and the staff from the estate agent apologised quite sincerely. Someone senior from the estate agent gave some information of a similar property around the same area to us. We both found this house quite met our expectation so we expressed our interest and the house seller B accepted our offer within one week. As this house B is a no chain house, we expected the procedures can go through more quickly than last time. However, the enquiries have taken more than four months and there is still two outstanding enquiries. We did try to ask what the last two enquiries were but not getting any response. William H Brown is a liar as the house B suddenly becomes a chained property during the conveyancing process.
written by Truthteller1 on 18/01/2023
We rent a house through William H Brown at Yarmouth, from the minute we took the property we had problems. We collected the keys went to the property and work was still going on so couldn't move in for 2 weeks, when we finally moved in we had no gas and no hot water for 3 months, they were no help, said it was down to us, we had leaks, problems with electrics which we had to keep chasing them to fix. We reported a severe rising damp problem in July and repeatedly till they finally came in December after getting environmental health involved. Due to this we have now after 8 months of hell have been served a section 21, we have always paid the rent even though really they owe us compensation now for the time we couldn't live here and the time with no hot water or gas which is a necessity. They just don't care and it now looks like we will be homeless as we used our savings to pay 6 months up front as it was the only way we could get a property as I'm disabled.
written by jmjmjmjm on 20/05/2022
I've been a "customer" of William H Brown now for almost 10 years. During which time I've purchased a house with them, attempted to sell one (unsuccessfully I would add) and remortgaged a couple of times. However, my latest endeavour with them will be my last. Apparently when a company waives a "lifetime" fee in 2013 and makes no mention of this during transactions in 2015 and 2021, they reserve the right to charge it in 2022. In short, I guess times are tough and making a commission from the mortgage provider and an admin fee isn't enough? So instead, despite our 10 year relationship clearly holding little worth (I'd have gone back to them in the future for remortgages and hopefully next year a house move), we will part ways and I'll have to consider it a lesson learnt.
written by Halseyzq1947 on 27/12/2021
Let my flat out to them about 4 years ago. The first year or two they were very good with keeping me up to date with things such as annual boiler check and electrical check and informing me of any other repairs etc. Also did there regular spot checks every three months or so and reported back to myself on there findings. Earlier on they were great as I said earlier but things started to change even before covid 19. The regular checks literally stop to a point where I had to keep chasing them with what’s going on as I wasn’t directly involve with the tenants. It got to the point where the tenants got my number off my neighbour just to inform me that things there needed fixing and I wasn’t been made aware of from the agents even though they were telling them things needed doing which I don’t blame them for in that aspect. I felt that I had to get so involved in the running of the letting to the point where I said to them what was the point of paying you for full management of the place when I didn’t want the stress of it. This carried on for a number of months of me chasing the agents up on what’s going on with the place, leaving messages and NEVER get a call back from them regarding an issue. Even when it came up to eventually getting the tenants out by giving them three months notice and them not willing to leave William H brown were no help at all. It felt like they washed there hands of the situation and left it with my solicitors to deal with. I find there business as a whole was acted very unorganised with no help to me whatsoever and that I would NEVER use or recommend them for letting to anyone. It took exactly a whole year from August from the first initial letter of eviction to finally get the tenants out. Now with the tenants out this whole thing has costed me a lot of money and to even get the deposit back now is another issue. This is certainly a lesson learned and to be weary of estate agents such as William H brown by giving them full control of your property and given in to by there lies.
written by Graemeegg on 18/12/2021
Steer well clear , never again , awful experience , sold the house behind my back after offer was accepted by vendor
written by huddsladk on 05/10/2021
Absolutely shocking how can you operate a business with all the terrible customer reviews disgusting not even hearda thing back from them for days left me in the lurch sent deposit and bond and got passed around call after call no replies on my emails jsut the same copied and pasted message from days ago absolutely avoid at all costs not given bond back no support no manager no point
written by OmariPike on 23/08/2021
This is about the Norwich branch. Unfortunately I have to agree with all the comments about them below. Highly unprofessional and aggressive with students. They do have a lot of properties and so you are forced to go with them and landlords don’t seem to care about this. Their contract is very one sided and they will not change one point. If you can find a property with another letting agent I would strongly suggest going with someone else or finding out from current tenants who their landlord is and dealing directly with them. We dealt directly with the landlord as this company was so incompetent and aggressive and even complained to the manager who couldn’t care less. The landlady agreed and we dealt with issues between us. Try to avoid
written by Ralston418 on 29/01/2020
AVOID AT ALL COSTS!! This is so bad you probably won’t believe it. Never ever again will I consider using William H Brown!!!! Absolutely disgusted with the service and shocked how unprofessional the person was when it came to dealing with my complaint. 1. I was told by the salesman that the property would be sold through the Norwich branch, (I was particularly happy about this as it was explained to me that this branch had far more resources to sell at a higher price and much faster than the smaller branches which have only two staff to deal with this) yet it was transferred to the Hellesdon branch. 2. WHB Forgot to market the property for 3 weeks until I notified the Norwich branch. 3. To my amazement, somehow, they missed key benefits of the property and that it was to be sold as OIEO as discussed, taking three attempts to get it right via email before going live. Ultimately, I had to point out the important missing features on the marketing material, when in fact I should be the one being advised. 4. After completion the buyers spoke to me face to face, explaining they were never made aware of the garden to the right elevation of the property or to the left of the drive way and that the boundaries of the property were never pointed out on their viewings. If I had known this while in the negotiation stages, then obviously I could have come in with a counter offer or refuse the offer of £120,500 while at the same time explaining that they are not just getting the garden to the front elevation but also the garden to the right elevation, which can easily be used as a private garden if a fence it erected as there are no windows overlooking. This shows there was clearly scope for negotiating a considerably higher price than £120,500. 5. I then researched local estate agents for similar flats, this is when I found a 1 bed flat on Pyehurn Mews with exactly the same layout and a very similar sized rear garden that completed with KT Estate Agents for £135,000. Again, this shows there was clearly scope for negotiating a considerably higher price than £120,500. 6. When I called the Hellesdon branch and spoke with someone explaining. Before I had a chance to finish, she became aggressively defensive, denying my claims, insinuating that my mother was a liar (as she heard the same from the buyers) and immediately threatened me with debt recovery instructions. I was overwhelmed with this approach and the conversation soon ended with a debt collection threat. Like any other customer complaint to a business, I was expecting to be able to have a conversation about my experiences, then for the same person to at the very least say something to the effect of I will look into this before I pass comment and I will be in touch shortly”. Because this did not happen, there has not been any conversation to attempt to resolve my complaint, only legal threats. 7. The next working day I had a debt recovery company chasing me. 8. I have potentially lost a few thousand pounds for the incompetence of the Hellesdon branch.
written by Cashl100 on 26/11/2019
The service received from William H Brown agents unprofessional and total lack of communication, appalling service . PLEASE NOTE THE ONLINE EXTRA PRO PLUS MARKETING PACKAGE IS A ABSOLUTE WASTE OF £300 pounds and is non- refundable unless you sell your property through them and use Sequence Home Conveyancing to complete the sale of your property through them . We had 5 viewings of which 3 I had to do the viewing through there lack of bad organisation and no staff available ! I paid for a service which I then had to do myself . I never received a weekly update during our marketing period with a call nor after any of the viewings. I had to call WH BROWN constantly for feedback .The staff turn around speaks loud volumes. I certainly would not recommend this company to sell your home. I uploaded this truthful review on Facebook and WH Brown have removed my review and blocked my account . Shows there true unprofessionalism.
written by 414McCollum on 05/09/2019
William H Brown Estate Agents. In my case, stating that there is a phone line in the building you are about to rent and when you move in you discover that there are no phone cables at al............. you make your own conclusions. A place that leaves you with a blocked fire exit for over a month. Maybeeeee they will fix it after the visit of a Fire Officer. A place that recommends you to leave your rubbish rotten in a room in the building corridors for over a week, and that charges you if having some not "domestic" rubbish. It is not my case, but there are comments in the Sequence UK page about problems in getting the deposit back. More than one. I hope it won't be my case.
written by Alexish230 on 17/07/2019
Terrible.. William H browns lettings and property management arm is useless. for starters their fees are high,they try to charge for an inventory that is exactly the same as the previous one.. but with even more mistakes in it!... They are not aware of what their contractors are doing and when it comes to actually earning their cut and evicting someone, they are slow,ill informed and un-interested. The young girl in charge of lets at my local branch didnt have a clue!!!.. was slow to react and I often waited 3-4 days for a call back!!.. STAY CLEAR!
written by Steinerkrupp on 10/01/2019
Cash offer with no chain totally ignored, arrogant attitude, offensive and unable to spell correctly. Why does w h brown employ kids just out of nappies and expect them to behave like adults. Rushden office avoid like the plague
written by Sergio177 on 29/09/2018
I placed my house for sale with William H Brown Norwich - and wished I had not. Open house to launch the sale a student arrived from the company and was not briefed, nor interested (I offered to show him around) and certainly not an asset to selling the house. No feedback whatsoever about the viewings on Open House at all - ever. After a couple of days of not hearing from them after the event I thought I'll wait and see how long it takes them. It never happened. Likewise no acknowledgment of my email and letter saying i was withdrawing my property until two days after my 'deadline.' They talk the talk but singularly fail to deliver. My advice is to avoid William H Brown. there may be worse Estate Agents in business but I have not found one.
written by Lesly38 on 11/09/2018
I moved in the property I'm curently still here been in here nearly six months when I got the keys for this property it wasn't the best but I thought I'd make the best of it but when I got the keys I complained about the carpets a dog had messed alovery them when I put fire on ithe stunk I had to pay a professional carpet cleaner I got receipts but they would help me left me and my son to live in a place that wasn't livable then couple months later I kept getting letters for the landlord and I accidentally opneed a letter the morgage was in areas and told wh brown they dI'd nothing just kept fobbing me off it is now in more areas and I asked for proof of buy to let Morgan details thay still not providing me with this I've sent post back to bank where morgae lender is I told wh brown and landlord asked me to text when I got mail I said why not change your address I'm not your secretary it's all still going on I'm in the dark could potentially loose my home if this isn't ligit the staff at wdh are rude don't phone you back leave you in a worrying mess I'm poorly myself with a little boy and this isn't helping my illnesses all this stress is killing me but they don't care one bit please don't use you'll be very disappointed and the worst thing I'm still living it my agreement runs out in Feb if it hasn't gone by then the estate agent said the landlord got loads of properties I don't believe anything that comes from that place staff are all clever except 2 they know who they are I wouldn't recomend to anybody
written by alichiakwapisz on 11/08/2018
Left my house sale stagnant for 4 weeks, no feedback, no updates. Lied to me and said all was fine when I called up despite there being clear issues financially hence why nothing had progressed. Within 4 weeks of it being sold I was still being told all was fine, sold sign was up, there was no memorandum of sale despite chasing it twice, there was no contact with my solicitor at all. Then after I went in and had to demand to know what was happening I got told that they didn't know and the Sales Progressor couldn't understand my frustration as it had only been a few days since a price was agreed, really I get it to 4 weeks was my response. I then asked for it to be put live immediately, an open house organised and the other people that offered to be contacted with some serious feedback ASAP, I also put a complaint in and asked for the Area Managers details. The sold sign is still up 10 days after the sale has fallen through with no sign of it coming down, it took a week for them to make it active online after I asked for it to be done and they lied and said it has been done when they called me up, they are refusing to give me the Area Managers details and are completely dismissive of the fact they left a sale for 4 weeks with no action and didn't tell me the buyer wasn't financially viable. The Branch Manager is trying to tell me they didn't know but her Mortgage Advisor and Sales Progressor have already told me they knew but were trying to sort it The Manager you should be ashamed, ashamed for being dismissive, ashamed for not giving me your Managers details hiding WH Brown Barnsley's errors. You should also be appalled to say to me that the open house still hasn't happened despite me asking over 10 days for one to be organised and now asking me if I want one when I told you 10 days ago I did, and also saying that the sold sign should have come down but didn't happen because you weren't there last week. Well you've been back a week and it still hasn't happened. I got told when I signed up be careful they are an office full of rookies, I trusted them from Mariella's own words and I'm not eating my own words.
written by on 06/03/2018
Myself and my wife experienced complacency, arrogance and a 'couldn't care attitude' when we recently used William H Brown one of the young girls in their Lowestoft branch had very poor people skills and seemed more interested in her nails and her hair than helping any potential customers .....very poor overall , a real let down & suffice to say they will not be getting any of our money ....it's a shame because one of their mortgage advisors in the Great Yarmouth branch was really nice and friendly and explained everything superbly....perhaps she needs to give the rest of the staff in the local branches some 'customer service ' training..?
written by AllissonBroussard on 22/02/2018
We decided we no longer wished to sell our home with W H Brown and was told over the phone we would receive a full refund, since we cancelled a couple days after signing up (within the 14 day cancellation period) and was told since we had received no services we would get a full refund. 1 week later received an email saying they had changed their mind and we would get nothing. Over priced and under value properties.
written by Dunnum281 on 09/12/2017
The service we received has been utterly appalling over a sale of a property in Watton. The contact with WHB has been dealt with in a way that it makes you wonder who is paying who for a service? Indeed, myself has had to make several calls regarding the sale culminating in a formal complaint been made to their HQ. We have been given the runaround with false information regarding an Exchange of Contract date, bad communications, staff not in the office or no one to cover and a rubbish advert that had to be redone by my own mother! The whole experience has been a debarcle from start to finish. I would strongly urge that you do not use this estate agent as they simply could not care two hoots and the customer services leaves a lot to be desired. For a fee of over £3k I would expect a damn sight better service that what we have received. I myself had a massive row with them as they could no longer tell us where we are at the sale or even care about the sale. Both us as vendors and the buyer have been led down the garden path. They really are not the best to deal with. Then they wonder why I exploded at the eleventh hour with the removals been booked and with no sale.... It's been a very bad experience all round. Never again. We have instructed our solicitor to not pay the fee until their is an explaination where things went wrong. As soon as I mentioned this they bleated all they do is "Introduce" a client to a vendor. Wow! They want more than my solicitor is a fully trained and went to law school for six years. A trained chimp could do an estate agent! Both me and buyer have teamed up to do a joint complaint. In one word: RUBBISH!
written by Keely1234 on 07/12/2017
I would avoid using these Estate Agents. Mortgage Advisor recommended expensive Solicitors who were amazingly slow, I guess the commission for the advisor must have been worth the bad reputation. He provided incorrect advise and was very unprofessional including laughing at my query that there may be a rat problem in the property which turned out to be an infestation and expensive to fix. She was very helpful and assisted my queries very quickly and seemed out of place in this very unprofessional Agency.
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